Lil Uzi Vert

Symere Woods was born on Juli 31, 1994 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He is an American rapper. Symere didn’t stand out very much in high school. When he noticed that a friend got a lot of attention from the girls and respect from his class mates via rapping he got interested in rap music. He started to listen to the music of A$AP Rocky, Pharrell Williams, Kanye West, Young Thug, Wiz Khalifa, Lil Wayne , A$AP Ferg and Yang Twins. He was struck by the style of Marilyn Manson and wanted something similar. The parents of Symere are divorced. His mother works as a nurse. In his neighbourhood, most friends like rap music. At that time Symere was a fan of alternative rock music and he liked skating. When he’s in the 10th grade one of his friends, William, records a rap Freestyle at school. Everyone thought it was great, but Symere became jealous and thought he could do that too. He started to listen to rap music even more and throws freestyles made by himself on YouTube. At that point in time he didn’t have a stage name yet. One of his friends mentioned that he raps very fast, as if he is a Uzi (automatic weapon). His stage name became Lil Uzi Vert from then on. Vert(vertical) stands for the direction the rapper want to move: up, to the top. In 2014 he uploads his tracks to soundcloud. This resulted in cooperations with several artists, for example power 99, which results in more professional material such as the track UZI. The track was released on the radio and he received a lot of credits for his work. A$AP Yams twittered that he was to become a star. Despite his success, his mother wants him to stop rapping and focus on school. He has to start a small job as a stock boy at a dollarshop (cheap stuff), but he does not find this fitting with his image and quits. His mother becomes furious and kicks him out of the house. He then moved in with his grandma.

Lil Uzi moves to Atlanta to record rap tracks. He didn’t have money to pay for beats, but he is helped by beat makers who send him a coupe of beats. In 2015 he released the track ‘’WDYW’’ (What Do You Want), together with DJ Carnage. The track received 1.2 million views and enabled Lil Uzi Vert to sign a contract at Generation Now and later Atlantic Records. Later that year, he throws the track ‘’Safe House’’ with a clip of his own. It gets 1.5 million views, and then things start to speed up with his career. He stands out with his special flow: lazy with a melodious voice with a lot of ”yeah yeah’s” in between.

He is the face of rap and hiphop in 2016. His popularity skyrocketed that year. He puts the track ”Money Longer” online which is his breakthrough with 74.6 million views. In 2017 Uzi entered the US top 100 when ”Bad and Boujee” hits the number 1 position. He has rapped a verse on this track. The most streamed track on Spotify by Lil Uzi is ”You Was Right” with 107.7 million streams. Every month 7.4 million people listen to the rapper which puts him on position 175 in the world.